


What I Need

by terma_archivist



Category: Once a Thief (TV)
Genre: F/M, Language, No Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-01
Updated: 2002-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26535691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terma_archivist/pseuds/terma_archivist
Summary: Mac is dead, sorry. Victor is self- destructive. And the Director is really good!
Relationships: The Director/Victor Mansfield
Kudos: 1
Collections: TER/MA





	What I Need

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [TER/MA](https://fanlore.org/wiki/TER/MA) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the TER/MA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/terma/profile).  
> Thanks to Row for tapping her foot. And a special thanks is due to Nick Lea. Without him none of us would come ... here. I would certainly like to know what you think.

  
**What I Need  
by LeFey**

  
It had been a year and a half since the explosion. Life had trailed on, but Victor had wandered off the path, or been left behind, or charged on ahead, frequently, in the months that had followed Mac's death. He had been drunk and morose at first but realized on his own that waking up feeling worse than when he started wasn't a good plan. 

Then he tried sex. He threw crude remarks at LiAnn who was now as sullen as he had been while drunk. He grabbed and groped at her in deserted hallways, elevators and the solitude of any vehicle they shared. Finally, she backhanded him hard enough to split his lip. She screamed, fighting back tears. 

"Victor, please! Don't make me hate you. There's only you and me left." 

They all but stopped speaking after that. The only thing that passed between them was what was necessary for the job. LiAnn settled into a functional depression, and Victor was off to find the next escape. Jackie was easier. Jackie was willing, but she couldn't destroy the beast that gnawed at him. Her incessant talking drove him crazy. One night Victor covered her face with a pillow to silence her as he fucked. Their encounters ended when he nearly smothered her. After Jackie, he went on to strip clubs and prostitutes and all manner of debauchery. The old Victor would have been sickened by what his new incarnation was capable of doing. But he continued because as orgasm ripped through his body, each one less satisfying than the last, he did not think about what he was doing. He only thought, "Mac is dead." 

Mac, ten years younger, had done, and seen, and been more than Victor could ever hope to be. Mac, ten years younger than Victor, would never experience another moment of life. Victor was determined that the lesson of Mac's death wouldn't be wasted on him. He was finally going to live his life, even if it killed him. He wandered into his apartment one night, slightly drunk and funky from sex, to find the Director waiting on his bed. She rested cross-legged on the duvet and apparently she had made the bed. She wore simple clothes, jeans, polo shirt and running shoes. This looked stranger on her than any outfit she'd displayed herself in. Her hair was the same, up and massed in elaborate waves and curls. It glowed with titian fire 

even in the dim light of the bedside lamp. She gave the impression of someone about to change clothes and be off to a more important function. 

Victor saw her immediately. He all but ignored her as he peeled off his jacket and threw it across a chair in the corner. He was tired, spent and as usual beginning to feel uneasy about the things he had allowed himself to do. He unbuttoned his shirt. 

"Victor we need to talk," she told him, her tone cold and imperious. 

He took off his shirt and let it drop to the floor. 

"Yeah? What you want to talk about, Baby?" He moved closer to the bed, "I never was much of a talker. LiAnn will tell you I wasn't bright enough. Mac was always proud to talk circles around me. You," he waved his hand at her, " make it clear my contributions are always next to worthless. And now," he shrugged, "talk just seems like a waste of time." 

He dove at her, knocking her back, plunging into the yielding down of the comforter, bouncing on impact with the firm mattress. The Director rolled with him, using his own force against him. After a moment of chaotic struggle she was astride his stomach. Victor froze as the chill from a nasty serrated combat knife pressed against his throat. 

"You are a valuable asset of mine, Mr. Mansfield." Her face was only inches from his. Her eyes, narrowed and hard, locked onto his. The soft mist of her labored breath brushed his cheek with each word. "One might say you are a treasure. I like my treasures polished and lately you have become tarnished." 

What little was left of Victor Mansfield broke. The man of duty, integrity and honor crumbled into embers of anguished frustration and pain. 

"Go on kill me," he seethed. "Kill me and put us both out of our misery, you controlling, sick bitch!" The force of his words escalated till the last one was literally spit in her face. 

She rocked back, but kept the knife at his throat. She looked at him for a moment as if sizing up some anomaly in an otherwise ordered universe. 

"I didn't realize it had gotten this bad." Then she shook her head and a rare self-chastising frown pursed her lips. "No, that's not true. I just refused to accept it. But I see the pattern. First the drunkenness, then the sexual aggression and now the whoring are all your excruciatingly slow way of committing suicide. Couldn't you just take pills like everybody else? Then we could pump your stomach and be done with this business." 

She leaned towards him. Her words came in a surprisingly gentle tone. "No matter what sort of sacrifice you try to make of yourself it will not resurrect Mac." 

The growl came from deep within his chest and was something tortured and primal as it left his lips. He twisted and rose off the bed only to settle and become still after he felt the knife bite into his neck. 

"Don't be stupid, Victor." She panted from her struggle with him. "I won't let you destroy yourself. But I will hurt you." 

He turned his face away from her despite the burn of the knife against his skin. His body trembled from his unexpressed rage. His mind raced to devise a plan. His heart pounded, urging him to fight or flee. 

"I need you whole and functioning," she told him, her breathing growing steady. "And I am prepared to do whatever is needed to make that a reality." She withdrew the blade from his throat. She held it for a moment and examined the dark stain that streaked the steel. She reached out and touched the slight wound on his neck. He turned at the sensation and looked at her again. 

"This ends tonight," she informed him. She tossed the knife on the floor. "You have to stop hurting yourself because Mac died and you were left alive." 

The words, hit him, pummeled him, turned his limbs to concrete, and his will to leadened entropy. The anger that had made him unable to be still was turning inward to anchor him to a deathly depression. A convulsive sob tore through him, doubling him up with its suddenness and nearly unseating the Director. 

"Victor, your life is not over because Mac, your partner, is gone." 

"And when am I gone, huh?" His voice threatened to crack, too thin, from a throat that was too tight. The struggle to get each word out raised the temperature of his already heated face. "When am I going to be the next disposable agent? Just another one of the interchangeable parts in your big spy machine." 

"Victor, I never thought." 

"What? That I would want my life to be more than this legalized slavery I have to endure till I get blown away, like Mac?" 

"No." She paused and looked thoughtfully at him, then spoke quietly. "I never thought that you were just afraid." 

"You bitch!" The anger was back, charging his body, knotting his neck. "You fucking Bitch!" He raised his hand, balled his fist and drew back to strike her. 

"Is this what you need?" The words came with a cool detachment, only colored by a tint of curiosity. 

"Goddamit!" Victor let the tortured cry engulf him. He pounded his fists into the bed, tossing his head in anguished disbelief. 

"I've never hit a woman in my life. Now, I'm this close." He held his trembling hand up for her to see. His thumb and index finger nearly touched. His hands went to his temples and he grabbed his head. His mouth contorted into a soundless scream. He gasped and gritted his teeth. 

"I've never done a lot of things that are becoming second nature to me now." He gave a bitter pained laugh and rubbed his eyes with one hand. "You'll get a kick out of this. I picked up a hooker. She complained I was too rough. I got mad and strangled her till she blacked out. I was never this. this animal I am now. I was never like this before." 

"You never lost a partner before. And he was a partner you saw so much of yourself in, that his death terrified you." Her voice was low and soothing. A believable comfort coming from such an unlikely source. She ran her hands down his bare chest. Nothing provocative, just human touches to bring him back from the darkness that had swallowed him. 

Victor relaxed after a few moments of her ministrations. He took his hand from his eyes, sniffed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then, he let his hand fall limp by his side and looked up at her. 

"Mac and me were nothing alike," he said, his voice was quiet and tired. 

"I wouldn't be so certain of that. You both cover incredible insecurities under that emotional armor you wear. You're a pair of charming, manipulative and sexy bastards. And admit it, the two of you have plotted together against me on countless occasions. Your devious little minds work the same way." 

"Worked," Vic corrected. Mac's gone." 

"And you are still here, Vic. As brilliant and beautiful and valuable as ever." She raised her hand to his cheek. He turned into her caress and placed a hesitant kiss on her palm. 

"This is what I need," he whispered. 

"I know." She allowed him to pull her down into an embrace but avoided the kiss he tried to give her. 

"I need you to make love to me. I need to sleep with someone who understands me," he whispered against her neck. 

"I know," she assured him. She entwined her fingers in his hair and pulled his head back. There was nothing he would have to ask for the rest of the night. 

* * *

She found him exercising on one of the workout machines in the gym. A sheen of sweat polished his lean muscles. When he saw her he grabbed a towel slung across a vacant machine next to him. He wiped his face and chest as she walked towards him. 

"Don't come too close," he raised his hand to stop her. "I've been at this for awhile." He gave her a boyish grin. "I bet I stink." 

"Suddenly, false modesty? A little sweat has never gotten in our way before." But there was something in his eyes, a glittering intensity and steady balance that told her things have changed. 

"Yeah." His smile faded. "Well." He hesitated, staring at his hands as he took too long to dry them. Finally, he looked up and smiled. 

"Thank you." The words were simple and quickly said but carried the detail of what happened between them. She was honest enough, with herself, to admit she would miss him. Miss the elegant strength of his long-limbed body and the newfound ease with which he accepted pleasure. But she had done her usual excellent job with him, so from the beginning this was inevitable. Still, she fought the urge to say something flip, mark him with words that told she owned him. Instead she merely nodded, acknowledging she knew what this was about. Victor dipped his head in an appealing gesture of shyness. 

"I'm okay now." 

She turned to leave. 

"I know." 

* * *

What I Need by LeFey   
Disclaimer: They belong to John Woo and Alliance.   
Rating: PG 13 Language.   
Spoiler: None   
Summary: Mac is dead, sorry. Victor is self- destructive. And the Director is really good!   
ARCHIVE: RatB, Calculated Risks http://denofsin.slashcity.tv/~lefey  
Thanks to Row for tapping her foot. And a special thanks is due to Nick Lea. Without him none of us would come . here.   
I would certainly like to know what you think. [email removed]   
---


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